The Motorola Moto G8 Power is an affordable Android smartphone with complete hardware and a huge battery. The price-quality ratio is excellent on paper, but what about in practice? You read it in this extensive Motorola Moto G8 Power review.
Motorola Moto G8 Power
List price € 229, –
Colors Black and blue
OS Android 10
Screen 6.4 inch LCD (2300 x 1080)
Processor 2 Ghz octacore (Snapdragon 665)
RAM 4GB
Storage 64GB (expandable)
Battery 5,000 mAh
Camera 16, 8, 8 and 2 megapixel (rear), 16 megapixel (front)
Connectivity 4G (LTE), Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi, GPS,
Format 15.6 x 7.5 x 0.96 cm
Weight 197 grams
Other Headphone port, water resistant
Website www.motorola.com/nl 8.5 Score 85 
- Pros
- Excellent battery life
- Smooth performance
- Versatile cameras
- Clean Android software
- Negatives
- No nfc chip
- No 5GHz WiFi
- Update policy could be better
Motorola has been known for years for its affordable smartphones with a generally good price-quality ratio. The new Moto G8 series appeared last year, with the Moto G8 Plus as the first model (269 euros). You can read my Moto G8 Plus review here. Recently, the Moto G8 Power is also for sale for a suggested retail price of 230 euros. This device has, among other things, a changed camera setup, a much larger battery and therefore that lower price. The past few weeks I tested the phone.
Design
When I took the Moto G8 Power out of the box, I did not feel that I had a 230 euro smartphone in my hands. The device looks modern and luxurious because the screen fills almost the entire front and the edges are very narrow. The back shows a pattern, contains a quadruple camera and feels sturdy. The smartphone is well finished, comfortable to hold and has an accurate and fast fingerprint scanner in the Motorola logo on the back.
The main drawback of the plastic back is that it attracts fingerprints and dust. I suspect that the material also scratches relatively quickly. After my two-week test period, the smartphone still looks like new, but I also used it carefully and did not put it in a pocket with my keys.
Pleasant is that the Moto G8 Power has a water-repellent housing and therefore should not be broken by a rain shower. The device has a USB-C connection and a 3.5mm port to connect your wired headphones.
Motorola sells the smartphone in the colors black and blue. I tested the black version.
Moto G8 Power screen
The screen of the Moto G8 Power measures 6.4-inch, which is an average size for a smartphone in 2020. The relatively large screen is characterized by a small hole in the top left corner. The selfie camera is in this hole. Last year’s Motorola One Vision also has a camera hole, but it is so big that it was very noticeable and got in the way with some apps. The hole of the Moto G8 Power is considerably smaller and has not bothered me for a moment.
The screen quality is also excellent, especially for such an affordable smartphone. The screen looks sharp due to the full HD resolution and the LCD panel shows beautiful colors. The maximum brightness is high enough to view the screen outside, with a March sun above my head, without any problems.
In this price segment you can also buy a smartphone with an OLED screen. Such a display offers an even better image and is slightly more energy efficient. Samsung, among others, sells such devices. Motorola would – at least for me – score points by putting an OLED screen in the Moto G9 Power.
Hardware
To make an affordable smartphone, a manufacturer must make concessions. That is no different with the Moto G8 Power. For example, the device lacks an NFC chip, so you can not pay contactless in shops with this phone. 5GHz WiFi is also not supported. The Moto G8 Power can only connect to a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, which is a shame because 5GHz Wi-Fi is more stable and faster.
Fortunately, Motorola has not cut back on the most crucial parts. The working memory with 4GB is nice and large, the Snapdragon 665 processor runs smoothly and the smartphone has a large 64GB storage memory. You can expand this with a micro-SD card. The Moto G8 Power also supports dual SIM, or two SIM cards.
An important nuance: Although the phone is fast enough, you occasionally experience hiccups. For example if you switch between the camera and a game. Heavy games run nice, but are usually not playable at the highest settings. Given the price of the smartphone, you can’t complain about this.
Divine battery life and smooth charging
The main selling point of the Moto G8 Power is its 5000 mAh battery. Such a large battery is rare, especially in an affordable phone. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra also has a 5000 mAh battery, but that’s because the smartphone has a huge 6.9-inch high-resolution screen and powerful hardware.
The Motorola Moto G8 Power lasts a lot longer than other smartphones, thanks to its very large battery. During my test period I was unable to drain the battery in two days. I did not succeed in a third full day of use, but those who take it easy will have no problem.
The 18W plug that Motorola puts in the box charges the battery in a few hours. That is fine in view of the large battery. Thanks to the excellent battery life, I did not feel the need to hang the smartphone on the charger during the test period because I needed extra power. I just charged the device once in the evening when I went to bed and was able to move forward for days.
The Motorola Moto G8 Power cannot charge wirelessly, which I consider a logical cut given the sales price.
Four cameras on the back
The camera hole in the display contains a 16 megapixel camera for selfies and video calls. The photo and video quality is fine and in line with competitive smartphones. It is great that such a barely visible camera can take ‘just good’ photos. Video calling may take some getting used to because the camera is not centered but angled, which you notice when you hold the phone horizontally.
More interesting is the camera setup on the back. Motorola puts no fewer than four cameras in the Moto G8 Power. It is a normal primary camera, a wide-angle lens, a macro lens and a telephoto lens with resolutions of 16, 8, 2 and 8 megapixels. You can find such a camera combination on more affordable smartphones and is a welcome innovation, because four cameras can do more than one. In this area, the Moto G8 Power has an advantage over devices with fewer cameras.
On paper then, because more cameras are not directly equal to better photos. I also noticed that in practice. The Moto G8 Power usually shoots fine pictures, but is not the best camera smartphone in its price range. For example, the dynamic range is somewhat disappointing. On a cloudy day with a watery sun, the camera regularly goes into the fog by capturing the sky too white. In the evening, the camera struggles with the darkness and images show relatively much noise and fainter colors.
The wide-angle lens, which has a wider field of view and therefore takes a wider photo, works properly but is less good than the wide-angle lens on an expensive smartphone. People can be stretched in photos and the edges of the image are bulging and less sharp. Expensive phones are less affected by this thanks to a better camera and sophisticated software.
The macro lens on the Moto G8 Power allows you to photograph objects from a few centimeters away. A nice feature if you like to capture pets, flowers or other objects up close. Although the macro lens is very useful, colors appear differently than in real life. The macro photos look paler, which can make a beautiful flower look almost dead.
Below three normal photos, followed by three macro photos.
Finally, the telephoto lens. According to Motorola, it offers zoom twice without loss of quality. This works nicely. A photo taken twice closer looks fine. Keep in mind the lower resolution (8 megapixel), which is enough for social media but not for a larger canvas. In addition, the zoom performance in the evening is less than during the day, which is because the telephoto lens catches less light and therefore takes a less clear photo.
Striking: on my Moto G8 Power, the camera app crashes regularly when I switch from the normal camera to the wide-angle or telephoto lens. Very clumsy. I have asked Motorola for an explanation and will update this article if I get an answer.
Motorola Moto G8 Power software
Motorola ships the Moto G8 Power with Android 10, the latest Android version available at the time of publication. Google will probably release Android 11 in the summer. A Moto G phone can usually count on one big update, in this case 11. Looking at Motorola’s update policy in recent years, it is unlikely that the Moto G8 Power will be eligible for Android 12 next. That would be a shame because some competing smartphones do get two Android updates.
The Moto G8 Power will be updated quarterly with an Android security update for the next two years. This is common for a smartphone in this price segment. A small part of the affordable devices receive an update every month and are therefore safer than a device that only receives the same update months later.
If you want two years of software support and three years of monthly security updates, it is best to buy an Android One phone. Motorola also sells Android One devices.
Although the Moto G8 Power is not one of them, the smartphone offers almost the same software experience. Motorola hardly adjusts the Android 10 software, so you use the operating system as Google envisions it. Motorola’s changes have been the same for years and may still appeal to me. For example, you can quickly start the flashlight and camera by shaking and turning the phone and in standby mode it shows the time if you keep your hand above the screen.
Conclusion: Buy a Motorola Moto G8 Power?
The Motorola Moto G8 Power is an affordable smartphone that offers remarkable value for money. From a good and almost front-filling screen and solid hardware to versatile cameras and of course that battery life of two to three days. Motorola’s software is also pleasant to use, although the update policy could be better. The lack of an NFC chip and 5GHz WiFi are other negatives of the device. But still, for a suggested retail price of 230 euros you buy a reliable smartphone that can in principle last for years and that is a nice thought.
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